Every delicious dinner starts with an idea. It's been raining pretty much the entire weekend here. The upside is that I don't need to water my garden, the downside is that I had to put a towel over my head and shoulders to go out and pick our salad greens yesterday. It was a warm rain, so I'm okay with that. I love growing my own lettuces. You just cannot begin to find these types or varieties in a store and you'd be hard pressed (or, at least, I would be) to even find them at a farmers market. I have Red Romaine, Sword, Buttercrunch and Drunk Woman Frizzy Head.
Last night's meal started out with some potatoes that I needed to use up.
I had Bob run into the little market up in Castle Rock on Friday as I needed some yogurt and milk. He came home with some really nice looking bone-in pork chops. In a couple of days, he'll be getting all of his top teeth pulled out (when he had radiation treatment for cancer, 11 years ago, it wiped out his teeth), so whatever Bob wants to eat, I'll fix it for him. I get to decide the style, however.
I found a recipe that I talked to my sister, Ginger, about and we both agreed that it sounded unusual to us...but it was just too unusual to not make it. I did cut the recipe in half. Click here to view the recipe.
As with any recipe that is really delicious, it starts out with some potatoes.
Here is the "unusual" part. You soak parchment paper in water. Yep. You read that right. You soak 2 large pieces of parchment paper in water. Get it wet. Swish it around. Let it soak for a few minutes.
After you get done playing around with the parchment paper in the water, wring it out. Next, drape it over your baking sheet and cut up your potatoes. You could use Yukon Gold or a nice red skinned variety. It doesn't really matter.
The potatoes get seasoned with some chopped garlic, extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. Then you drizzle over some lemon juice (this is a Greek dish, after all!) and...
some white wine. I used a nice 2016 sauvignon blanc from right here in Washington state. We do tend to have some pretty spectacular wines produced from this state.
After you add the wine, you cover the potatoes with the second piece of soaked parchment paper and seal it up. Then it goes into a 350-degree oven for around 40 minutes. Check it after 30 minutes because it really depends on your oven.
While the potatoes are in their lemony wine sauna, put some grill marks on your pork chops via a grill pan. Do not cook through. Remove from the pan and set aside.
After 30-45 minutes, pull the potatoes out of the oven, open the parchment sauna and...
stick the chops in on top of the potatoes. Reseal it and stick it back in for another 15 minutes or so.
